A place in Yorkshire with a history you can trace through the records: its entry in the 1086 Domesday Book, the archaeological finds and scheduled monuments around it, and the nearest Roman sites and battlefields. Everything below is drawn from the historical record.
In 1086, Austerfield was held by Nigel (Fossard).
When William the Conqueror's commissioners surveyed Austerfield in 1086, they recorded a manor held by Nigel (Fossard), who held from Count Robert of Mortain. Before the Conquest, in the time of King Edward, it was held by Earl Tosti.
The settlement was assessed at 18 hides for tax. There was land for 22 ploughs, with 32 plough teams at work (2 in the lord's demesne and 30 held by the villagers). The recorded population was 101 heads of household: 27 villagers, 34 smallholders and 40 freemen. These are heads of household, so the settlement's true population was several times larger. Its recorded resources included meadow (4 acres), woodland (1.5 * 1 leagues) and 2 mills. The manor was valued at 12 pounds in 1086, down from 18 pounds in 1066.
The Domesday Book was the great survey of England ordered by William the Conqueror in 1085 and completed in 1086, the oldest surviving public record in the country. How the survey worked →
Austerfield was one of the settlements recorded in Yorkshire in the 1086 survey. Yorkshire in the Domesday survey →
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 15 strands of Austerfield's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
1,035 recorded finds have been logged within about 5 miles of Austerfield, reported by members of the public and entered in the national record of archaeological finds. They span these periods:
The bedrock beneath Austerfield is Triassic Rocks (Undifferentiated) (Triassic).
Aubrey's full report for this location includes every Domesday manor, the complete record of medieval lordship, archaeological context, and the story of how this settlement evolved from 1086 to the present day.